John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Ask The Grief Experts

We must grieve and complete each relationship so that fond memories do not turn painful on us. (Published 4/19/2016)

Q:

How do I go on when I keep losing people in my family?

A Grief Expert Replies:

4/19/20126)Dear Janet,

Thanks for your note and question.

The key to your question is an idea we write about in our books, that is: “Unresolved grief is cumulative and cumulatively negative – and since time can’t heal emotional wounds, it just gets worse.”

Unresolved grief is both different and more than the immediate grief over the death of one important person in your life. It’s about all the things we wish had happened differently, better, or more; and all the unrealized hopes, dreams, and expectations about the future.

If you don’t know how to deal effectively with those unfinished aspects of the relationship that are left incomplete by the death, then you carry that unfinished business forward in your life.

Essentially, what that means is that as losses mount, you will be burdened with the accumulation of what was left emotionally unfinished in all the relationships, not just the most recent one with the person who died.

The key is to learn how to become emotionally complete in each relationship so that fond memories don’t turn painful for you; and so you can remember them the way you knew them in life, not only in death; and so you can have a life of continued meaning and value even though it is different than it would have been had they not died.

Go to the library or bookstore and get a copy of The Grief Recovery Handbook. Read it and take the actions it outlines. As you do, you will find a shift in your desire and ability to “go in” in your life.